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Cool. You can focus on when the outer world decides the tribe needs to get civilized and they starts intervening in the lives and practices of tribesmen, the boy is absolutely caught-up in the struggle.

Exactly, torn between his adopted people and his biological people. It is well documented that adopted tribal members were often very distraught when the tribes were required by peace treaties to return any captured whites, some would escape and return to their adopted tribe. "A history of Johnathan Alder" is a great, true, first hand account of this scenario.

Several African Moors became Roman Emperors; how many other Moors came with them to dilute the supposedly "pure" white "race" of Europeans? Of course many other non-Europeans were mixed in too, but the Moorish Emperors of Rome don't get much attention.

Romulus Augustulus.

Prostitution today is the exchange of money for sex; how, if at all, did the invention of coinage affect the concept of "prostitution"? I know about sacred prostitution; how and when did that concept disappear to be replaced by the modern concept? Also, "get thee to a nunnery" in Shakespeare was a reference to prostitution?

How were child royal marriages perceived as different from adult royal marriages? Did anybody at the time think it was weird?

Even though it almost certainly wouldn't appeal to most general audiences, I'd like to see a film that covers the lead-up to the American Civil War, mostly in regards to the tensions over the presidency as well as debates in the Houses. I would prefer it to at least attempt to not depict the southerners as crazy cartoon villains - I think Spielberg's film about Lincoln was a pretty good attempt to remaining unbiased despite the heavily controversial subject matter. A nuanced and maturely written film would be fantastic.

I think it would be cool to produce a series of historical novels that weave an epic narrative out of the troubled late third century and the Tetrarchic period.

It should begin with the Gothic victory over the Romans at Abrittus in 251, maybe mid-battle. The battle was fought at nighttime in a swamp, and saw the two emperors killed in combat. It should be depicted in a terrifying manner; the seemingly invincible Romans ambushed and cut down in darkness among the reeds and mud; the emperor Decius mercilessly hacked to death, his body never found. Opening the book series with this event would be symbolic of the traumas of the period. These traumas were about to get worse, with civil war, plague, other Germanic incursions and disastrous wars with the Persians. The heart of the Roman East, Antioch, will be twice sacked by the Persians, a Roman army will be destroyed by the Persians, the Alemanni and Iuthungi will invade Italy, the Franks Gaul and Spain, the Goths and Heruli Greece and Asia Minor, and in another climax, the emperor Valerian will be captured by the Persian Shahanshah Shapur I.

The series would focus on a series of emperors who try to fix the empire's problems, and would dwell on Gallienus, Postumus, Zenobia, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian, Galerius, Maxentius and Constantine. They all have different ideas, from persecuting Christians to coming up with new modes of power-sharing and succession, to promoting the emperorship and imperial cult in new ways, to ceaseless movement across the empire, to centralization, to regional focuses. Almost every one of these people are tragic figures who try their best but either fail to avert their demise or to find a lasting solution to political, military and economic instability, but their collective efforts transform the empire around them. The series ends in 313, when Diocletian, in retirement, dies soon after tending to his cabbages. His Tetrarchic regime collapsed soon after he left its preservation to his successors, but he lived long enough to witness Constantine adopt a minority religion that he had persecuted, Christianity. The world had changed.

A TV series set in the Ottoman Empire in maybe the late 19th c., maybe in the run-up to WWI. Ensemble cast including a Turkish advisor to the monarch, some European diplomats and/or spies, and one or more leaders of groups hoping to modernize the empire or to return it to its glory days. There was lots going on in Istanbul that could make a series a lot like Rome, referenced above.

...not to mention the presence of David Ferrie
pilot, activist, anti-communist, medical researcher, churchman, mafia henchman...described as 'the eye of the storm'. he could easily have a whole movie about.

(if you watched the movie 'JFK' he was the bizzare character played by Joe Pesci in a wig)

An american archaeologist is obsessed with finding Alexander's lost tomb. She realizes her short term journeys to Egypt and Mediterranean are not going to be enough for her to unravel it. She wishes to relocate to Egypt. However, her husband, a doctor, disagrees as he felt their life was more secure in the US. Argument goes on for a few days. He fears a dead king is going to pull their marriage apart. Finally, one day, she makes it clear that she is moving.

Following weeks were unsurprisingly unpleasant for the husband and he decides to go and visit his wife before they separate. He lands in egypt. Though unable to reach his wife through phone, he locates her finally and finds out she has been excavating an ancient cave. He goes there and to meets her, who is utterly bewildered. He learns that they had stumbled on an extremely well preserved body drowned in secretive herbal potions. They're unable to comprehend why it hasn't degraded. They move it into a lab, and shortly afterwards, the husband finds out the homeostasis of the body has somehow been kept intact through the potion it was dipped in. They move the body into US, where during the further analysis, the husband shockingly learn that he could make the dead man's heart beat again. He lets the news out that the 2300 year old man is still breathing, and is just brain dead. However, he soon finds out that there are traces of brain activities that doesn't correspond to the brain-death state.

In the meantime, heated discussion starts to develop in the media and at the government level regarding the moral complicity of waking a man who has been dead for years. Government finally gives in to the demand that he shouldn't be left to live in forced ventilation. Meanwhile government of Egypt steps in and demands the man returned to Egypt as he was originally buried there. A truce is achieved and Egyptian scientists are sanctioned to study the man in US itself, after which he was to be killed by removing the ventilation. Learning this, our couple rushes to save the dead guy from being killed again.

The scientists steps in. As they examine his body, they're shocked to the core when they learn his brain activities are now nearly in complete restoration. As they stand numb, the dead guy wakes up. The couple arrive, and are shell-shocked seeing that all the scientists and security personnel of the hospital are massacred and the dead-guy is missing. They goes in search for him, and finds him unconscious at a nearby yard. They take him into the medical facility of the husband and ties him up there.

By the time he wakes up, the couple had summoned an ancient linguist who converses with the dead guy and learns that he was a Greek soldier, who lived shortly afterwards the alexander's global conquest. Following the Hellenization of Egypt, whilst which, an estranged tribe asked Ptolemy I Soter a favor; to send a good Greek soldier to their aid. Our guy is the one sent, and he soon learns that they want him to be their "Gatekeeper". They believed in apocalyptic prophecies and revered a god whom they called 'Gatekeeper'. It was their belief that their god would elevate a Greek as 'Gatekeeper' and make him protect them. Before the elevation ceremony, they told he must travel to the deep unknown worlds and learn several secretive techniques to fight evil. As they directed, he boarded an Indian merchant vessel and landed in the Indian port Muziris. There he learned an ancient martial arts as well as local healing techniques. The tribes had further instructed him to board from there, Indian vessels that traveled to further east. He boards one and reaches the land unknown to greeks, called China.

He finds out that the egyptian tribe were actually a chinese diaspora. He finds a similar tribe there. There he gets training in chinese martial arts as well as herbology. From them, he learns that the apocalyptic myth of their sister tribe actually consists of a demon who is all skilled in all arts as well as dark magic. Therefore, his final task was to travel to the Himalayas and learn 'the secrets of mind' and magic from Indian sophists. However, his fellow chinese merchants, who traveled with him to china meets him again and warns him not to take road to himalayas. There, they said, duelled a tribe called Scythians, who were barbaric, cannibals, and who used to drink human blood and piss. He further learned from the chinese that the mythical demon they speak of was actually a Scythian who lived many years ago.

So our guy was convinced that he was learning all these for pretty much nothing, as what he was going to face was a mythical demon. Moreover, the magic and the mind-arts he was asked to learn wasn't really demonstrable when there was no demon. So he deemed the journey to Himalayas too risky and unworthy of his time. Thus he returned to south-India, Muziris and from there, traveled back to Egypt. There he lied to them that he had learned everything. Tribesmen were supremely pleased and subsequently, through a ritual, elevated him as the "Gatekeeper".

However, during the after-ritual feast, he learned terrible truths; the demonic scythian's body was preserved using ancient potions and he had apparently acquired a technique where he can project his mind and soul into any point in time. According to tribesmen, all the evil in the world, whether of the past, or of the future were caused by this Scythian. The Gatekeeper, thus also should learn this mind technique from Indian sophists, because he should duel the demon whichever time he appears at. The gatekeeper is then put to a trance, and his body is preserved in a potion. If the Gatekeeper loses his battle with the demon and gets killed, then the body rots and the potion turns bloody, into a stinky acid. It then melts the tomb-box and that is when the tribe seeks next gatekeeper. This war between demon and gatekeeper will go on for millennia until one dies. Then the dead one gets replaced, and so on.

Shocked, our guy started to confess that he hadn't learned the projection technique so putting him to trance could be suicidal. But it was too late, the tribes had put a paralyzing solution into his drink, and he passed out before he could confess.

Hearing this fascinating, albeit terrible story, the archaeologist couple consoles the greek that it was just a myth and such a demon doesn't exist. But the Greek now believes in everything tribes had told him. He believes all the bad things happened in the world is because of his absence, and Scythian's doing. He decides to set out and find if there are any sophists left in Himalayas so that he could learn the 'mind-skill' and finally confront the scythian.

The second part of this story would include his learning of the secret arts and final confrontation of scythian at various world-tragedies, which all are one way or other, his doing.

The backdrop of your story bears a tiny bit of resemblence with X-Men: Rise of Apocalypse (The comic, not the unimaginative abomination of a celluloid version), although that story is set in which seems to be the days of the first kingdom of Egypt. Also the Gatekeeper seems a bit like a 'good' version of Apocalypse. Since it has great potential to be a sci-fi, why not finish it in a distant dystopian future? In the third or fourth part maybe??

The backdrop of your story bears a tiny bit of resemblence with X-Men: Rise of Apocalypse (The comic, not the unimaginative abomination of a celluloid version), although that story is set in which seems to be the days of the first kingdom of Egypt. Also the Gatekeeper seems a bit like a 'good' version of Apocalypse. Since it has great potential to be a sci-fi, why not finish it in a distant dystopian future? In the third or fourth part maybe??

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